Peter Darman - Parthian Dawn

‘He may be old but his mind is as sharp as ever. I don’t suppose you refused his generous offer, did you?’ My father, King Varaz of Hatra, was far from happy. He paced up and down the council chamber while everyone else sat at the large rectangular table looked decidedly uncomfortable.

‘No, father, I accepted his most kind gift.’

My father, now in his late forties, had a smattering of grey in his short-cropped hair. But he still looked every inch the warrior he was — tall, muscular and imposing — his hands clasped behind his back as he continued pacing up and down in front of the large hide map of the Parthian Empire on the wall. The veins in his neck were bulging and his face was red; he was indeed far from happy. He eventually sat in his chair and began rapping his fingers on the table, which only added to everyone’s feeling of unease. He looked at me across the table.

‘You are the heir to Hatra’s throne, not the commander of some ramshackle desert outpost across the Euphrates.’

‘Hardly that, majesty,’ interrupted Addu, Hatra’s royal treasurer, a rather gaunt man in his fifties. ‘Dura Europus is a prosperous commerce centre at the junction of both the east-to-west and north-to-south trade routes.’

Dura Europus was a city built on a high rock escarpment on the west bank of the Euphrates. It overlooked the great waterway, which formed the western frontier of the Parthian Empire, and controlled a strip of land on the western side of the river for a distance of one hundred miles north and south of the city, as well as all ferries and bridges across the waterway for an equivalent length. The revenues raised from the endless trade caravans that passed through Dura’s lands were considerable, as were the dues raised from the charges levelled on the aristocratic landowners who farmed the rich Euphrates plain. And now the city belonged to me.

If Addu had sought to soothe my father’s temper he was sadly mistaken.

The king banged his fist on the table. ‘Dura Europus is on the west bank of the Euphrates, Lord Addu, which means that if an enemy attacks from the direction of Syria, then Dura Europus will be the first the fall.’

‘We have heard of no threat arising from that quarter, lord.’ It was the first time that Vistaspa, the commander of my father’s bodyguard and the head of Hatra’s army, had spoken. Five years older than my father and treated like a brother by the king, he had a lean, bony face and dark, cold eyes. He had always treated me with a detached aloofness bordering on disdain and had made little effort to garner my affection. He was utterly loyal to my father and absolutely contemptuous of everyone else, but his qualities as a commander ensured that Hatra’s army was one of the finest in the Parthian Empire.

My father leaned back in his chair. ‘Perhaps not yet, but they will come, of that I am certain.’ He shot me a glance. ‘The more so when they learn that the new King of Dura Europus is none other than the man who fought beside the leader of a slave rebellion in their own homeland.’

He spoke of my time in Italy with Spartacus, gladiator, slave and for three years the master of all Italy, and a man I was proud to call friend. Before that I had been raiding in the Roman province of Cappadocia under the command of Lord Bozan, at the time leader of Hatra’s army, but Bozan had been killed in battle and I and many other Parthians had been captured by the Romans, then put in chains and sent in boats to be slaves in Italy. It was there that we had been rescued by Spartacus and his men on the slopes of a sleeping volcano called Mount Vesuvius. Thus began a three-year campaign in Italy where I had led Spartacus’ horsemen, and where we had defeated the Romans on many occasions.

‘I do not fear the Romans,’ I said.

My father laughed. ‘You should, because when they hear that King Pacorus, formerly the friend of a slave general who terrorised Italy, is now the ruler of a small city within touching distance of their eastern provinces, they might be tempted to send an army to the walls of Dura Europus.’

‘I’ve beaten Roman armies before, father.’

‘Ah, yes, I forgot, you laid waste to their homeland. But correct me if I am wrong, they defeated you in the end, did they not?’

‘I am made king by Sinatruces, father. That is now law. What is done cannot be undone.’

My father stared at the table before him. ‘No, indeed. Vistaspa, you will take five hundred of Hatra’s garrison and camp them across the river from my son’s new kingdom, just in case he needs to call upon additional troops.’

Lord Kogan, garrison commander at Hatra, raised his eyebrows at this. In his mid-fifties, his shoulder-length hair and thick moustache streaked with white, his broad frame was still impressive. Tall and serious, he guarded his garrison with the tenacity of a hawk keeping watch over its nest.

‘That is many soldiers, majesty.’

‘I agree, Kogan,’ replied my father, ‘but I fear that many covet Dura Europus and I want Pacorus to enjoy his new position, at least for a while.’

‘I have troops enough to garrison the city, father.’

My father smiled. ‘Really? And who would they be?’

‘Those who came with me from Italy.’

‘A hundred and twenty, including the women?’

My father was referring to the twenty women horse archers who had fought beside me and were led by a Gallic princess named Gallia, the woman who was soon to be my wife. She had called her women warriors Amazons, named after a race of martial women who had lived on an Aegean island called Lemnos. Many people, including most in this meeting, thought they were ridiculous. But I had seen them fight in Italy and knew that they had earned their right to bear arms. I would trust them with my life; indeed, Gallia herself had saved my life once in southern Italy with her proficiency with a bow. It seemed like another life to me now.

‘Yes, father, including the women. And Gafarn, if he will accompany me.’

My adopted brother smiled at me. Two years younger than me, he had, since the age of five, been a slave in my father’s palace at Hatra. Taken as a captive in war, he had become my personal servant. He too had been captured in Cappadocia, subsequently freed by Spartacus when we had joined his cause, and then fought alongside me in Italy. During that time he had become like a brother to me, and I was glad that he been formally made so by my parents upon our return to Parthia.

‘Of course, who else is going to watch your back?’

‘Not so hasty, Gafarn,’ said my father. ‘You are the brother of Pacorus, no longer his slave. You must discuss the matter with your wife first. And I may not allow you to leave. You are, after all, second in line to Hatra’s throne and I do not want both my sons embarking on a fool’s errand.’

Gafarn smiled at me. ‘As you command, majesty.’

My father shook his head. ‘No, Gafarn, you must call me “father” now.’

‘Of course, my apologies, majesty.’

My father waved his hand at him. ‘It doesn’t matter. But talk with Diana. She may not want to leave Hatra now that you that have quarters in the palace. How is the child?’

My father was speaking of the infant son of Spartacus and a promise that I had made to his wife, Claudia, to take her son with me to Parthia in the event the slave rebellion was defeated. Gafarn and Diana, formerly a Roman kitchen slave in the gladiator school where Spartacus had trained, now a princess of Parthia and a close friend of myself and Gallia, were now bringing him up. How strange fate was.

‘He thrives, majesty, er, father.’

‘When you take up residence in Dura, Pacorus,’ continued my father, ‘you will only have a handful of Parthians to protect you and your new wife, plus the soldiers led by that Roman.’